04/29/2011

Interesting New York Timesarticle about how the Library is scanning its collection of 35,000 menus. My friend Harley has over 10,000 menus of his own. It is the largest collection of menus in private hands.

"The Harley Spiller Menu Collection totals 40 linear feet and consists of more than 10,000 items. Menus from Chinese restaurants comprise about three-quarters of the collection. These span in date from 1981 to 2009 and about 1000 of the menus predate 1960. There are some older menus in the collection, including a menu used at a luncheon with Li Hongzhang at Tiffin in 1879, which Spiller considers to be the oldest of his menus. Most menus are 11x17 broadsheets or the 8 1/2x 11 folded kinds, but there are also some dine-in menus, including one from the famous Snake Restaurant in Guangzhou, China. Within the collection are menus from every decade, menus from all 50 states, and 3 linear feet of international menus. Included also are photocopies Spiller made of Chinese restaurant menus contained in other collections at Hunter College and the New York Academy of Medicine."

04/27/2011

A shot of the garage apartment my friend Bill Brockflock lived in for five years.

Bill writes:

"The 2 car garage is actually below a lovely balcony that is off of the living room, which occupies the left side of the set of windows you can see. The 2 on the right were actually the bathroom windows, the next frame is the 5 foot high door to get onto the balcony, and then the next two are the start of 270 degrees of windows for the living room. The one car garage (right side of pic, just beyond the corner of the Jeep) is beneath the bedroom."

04/26/2011

"I lived in the garage apt of the Heath House on Bird at Granger (yeah, Granger AGAIN!) for about 5 years. An awesome, but small apartment. And believe me, with glass almost all the way around, a strong thunderstorm is kinda scary! I would love to have seen it fully reconditioned, but the costs are outrageous these days. Did you know that when the Heath House was built, the neighbor actually moved his house away from it? Ole stick in the mud!"

"I'll give you some interesting history: All 5 houses built in Buffalo were built for officers and executives of the Larkin Soap Co. It is interesting that the Larkin family did not ever own one - they owned the house that Buffalo Seminary used to own, on the corner of Lincoln and Forest. They actually owned the entire block they were on. It was a family compound."

"Just found a site that says that Larkin's first Salesman for his new company was Elbert Hubbard! Wow! Now so much connects."

04/23/2011

Great article in today's New York Times about how China is trying to "Curb Fancy Tombs That Irk Poor." To a Buffaloanian familiar with Forest Lawn, the tombs featured in the article don't seem particularly grand. Here's an example: